Krovven wrote on Nov 23, 2013, 05:32:Basically all turn-based games I've found have to resort to AI cheating to increase the challenge because once a player knows how the rules work, they will beat the computer every time. You can see this in everything from Civ to XCom.

Encounter design, encounter design, encounter design. For some reason, CRPGs of the past 15 years or so have had utterly terrible encounter design. Combat in a system like AD&D is compelling ONLY with properly designed encounters. The truly baffling thing with modern cRPGs is that there are literally 15 year old DMs who can make encounters and dungeons which are light years ahead of what you see in a cRPG. It's almost as if modern designers have never actually played DND, or another similar system. Designing an orc cave in which every room is filled with 5-6 identical orcs is utterly crappy dungeon and encounter design, yet that has been the standard from BG1 on, at least with regard to non-boss/set-piece encounters. A well designed encounter however, of the sort you're average 15 year old comes up with or that existed in the Gold Box games, can be challenging and memorable, even when, as you say, you've figured out how the system work. Who has played Pool of Radiance yet doesn't remember the troll and ogre encounter in the Slums? Or the encounter with 40+ various kinds of Hobgoblins on Sokol Keep? In the latter, who WASN'T on the edge of their seat fighting a desperate battle that required pulling out all the stop just to have a CHANCE of survival and victory? What about the Kobold King Throne room? I hate to keep harping on the Gold Box games, but as far as turn-based CRPG combat goes, they really are the pinnacle, even 25 years later. If those encounters I just mentioned are all things you've never played, then you've really never experienced proper RPG combat, something of which the Infinity Engine games are a very pale comparison -- unsurprising given that the IE was initially going to be used for an RTS, NOT an RPG.

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